BTA Anenome

Anthrax15

New member
Well yesterday I bought my first ever BTA or anemone for that matter. My tank is over a year old and very established.

When I bought it at the store, it was the best looking specimen and was only $30. It is about the size of a golfball. Maybe a little bit bigger. When removing it, I guess the LFS guy tore it a little bit. He said it would recover in a few days. If it dies, I dont owe him anything. But if it lives, I have to cough up the thirty dollars which seems resonable.

After acclimating it for an hour to my tank, I placed it in and after about 5 mins, it already have attatched itself to a rock. It looked fully "puffed" up and was doing great. Within half an hour of it being in, my Tomatoe clown already tried to get the Anemone to host it. It seemed rather aggresive towards it but I guess thats normal. The whole time my lights were on, the Anenome looked like a normal BTA.

Now that the lights have been off and then turned back on today, it has since gone under a rock and only about 1/4 of it is peaking out. Its bubble tips are also gone. It actually looks like a sabae anemone at the moment. With short tube tentacles.

I havent fed it or disturbed it in any way and since going under a rock, my Clownfish has left it alone.

What do I do to help it, is this normal Anemone behavior, and does this sound normal?

P.S. Its in a 40 BR tank with a 20g refugium/sump. I have a 4 Bulb T5HO Fixture, a Koralia #3 Powerhead and a Mag 5 Return Pump for flow and circulation
 
Are you acclimating it to your lights? If he tore the foot plus the stress of moving it I would say it doesnt have a very good chance of making it. If the tomato goes back to bothering it that will make it even worse. Can you post a picture of it?
 
I cannot post a picture at the moment being that no camera's and even if I did, I probably couldn't get a good picture of it. I am acclimating it to the lights. I placed it at the bottom of my tank, in the shade of another rock so it would have to venture out for light at its own pace. I did notice though that the parts of the Anemone that are exposed to light are looking more like a BTA.
 
How big is the anemone when fully open? When you say it is about the size of a golf ball, is that just the foot? How big is the clown?

Either way, it seems like the clown is too big for the anemone and is stressing it out. Going to have to figure out a way to keep the separate, or get a bigger anemone. I would like it to be at least 3 times the size of the clown.
 
When fully open, its about 4'' wide. The clown is about the same size but just thicker.

I bought a fish trap today on E bay and plan on getting rid of the two clowns and my damsel and replacing them with Black/White Percula's.
 
When fully open, its about 4'' wide. The clown is about the same size but just thicker.

I bought a fish trap today on E bay and plan on getting rid of the two clowns and my damsel and replacing them with Black/White Percula's.

They are called black and white oscellaris. They probobly will not be as hard on it as your current clown but they can still be rough an stressful to an anemone, especially one that small. Also a bta is not a natural host for oscellaris clowns but it is common for a bta to host oscellaris in captivity.
 
Pretty good actually. I was able to catch both clowns in the middle of the night so they are waiting in my Refugium to be donated. The anemone is in a weird spot though. Its under a rock but is pushing out trying to get light. All the tips look good now. I just hope that it moves to a more presentable spot.
 
I plan on feeding it tonight actually. Probably a few pieces of Krill.

Will it move so its out in the open? Right now it looks stuck almost.
 

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Oh no! It appears to be bleached. Not the worst ive seen and it can recover with proper care. If it eats thats a really good thing. Dont move it. Have you seen the mouth? is it closed?
 
Are you sure its bleached? Its kinda neon green in person. Its not white at all. And no I haven't see its mouth yet.
 
Well ill phrase it like this, its bleaching. The reason I didnt want to say it that way in the other post was because that kinda makes it sound like its your fault, and its not. Even the anemone in my avatar is a little lighter than it should be. It doesnt have to be completely white to be concidered bleached
 
Well I fed it two good size krill tonight. Seemed to eat em both. At least I didnt see any krill floating around.

In other news, I got all unwanted fish out of the tank. Thank the lord for my LFS fish trap! Now the Anemone will be able to thrive without any disturbances.
 
Yeah, it looks bleached, but not a complete bleach. Just enough that it needs food more frequently. The squished state is fine.

It could just be the picture/flash. If you can see through it, then it is bleached. It is a GBTA. So it will be a little more brown, but the tips might vary in the amount of green.
 
Feed it daily or every other day at first. You can ease up as it gets darker if you want. What to feed is up to you. Silversides, Krill, Mysis, cyclopeeze, Squid, Clams, Shimp etc. All raw of course. I guess it depends on how big it is. Just don't feed big pieces.

The food is there to supplement for the fact that the zooxanthellae are not present to give it energy. Otherwise it will start consuming itself.
 
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